Larry A. Rhodes, M.D., a pediatric cardiologist and one of the nation’s leading advocates for rural children’s health, has been elected to the Board of Trustees of the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation. He will join the board on January 1, 2020. He replaces Robert B. Walker, M.D., who has stepped down after 11 years of service on the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. As Trustee Emeritus, Dr. Walker will continue his commitment to the region and the Foundation.
Dr. Rhodes has served as a Professor of Pediatrics in the West Virginia University School of Medicine since 2005 and is the founding director of the University’s Institute for Community and Rural Health. He was honored by the National Rural Health Association as its Rural Practitioner of the Year. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Cardiology. A graduate of Alderson Broaddus College, he received his medical degree from West Virginia University School of Medicine and completed his residency at WVU Hospital. After fellowships at Boston Children’s Hospital in pediatric cardiology and clinical electrophysiology and lecturing in pediatrics at Harvard University, he returned to WVU School of Medicine. In 1995 he joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania as an attending Pediatric Cardiologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia before returning permanently to West Virginia in 2005.